A knowledgable musician is a good musician, and a good musician never stops learning.

I was at a family birthday party recently and a relative asked me how the lesson scene was going. I explained that things were not as good as last year, but it’s still early September. His reason for asking was that he heard about the closing down of the biggest music store in the area, citing low numbers of student sign-ups as a big factor. I’m not sure if this is what other music schools and instructors are experiencing, but I certainly am. In the decade I’ve been teaching there has never been a shortage of students, until now. Is it the economy? High gas prices? Low wages or wage freezes? Joblessness? I don’t know. But that’s not the reason for this blog. I want to talk about students’ attitude and perception. Who knows, maybe that’s also a factor in the low turn-out, too.

If you’re like most other musicians you’ve had to do some teaching to supplement your gigging income. Maybe you hate it and view it as a necessary evil. I certainly did, until the lightbulb went off . . .

He taught in a music store in a strip mall near my place and I had just signed up for a block of lessons. His big, long, permed hair practically filled the room. Mr. Perm held an 80’s coloured Ibanez and it was obvious this teacher was into hair metal bands with flashy, fast guitar playing.

He made his introductions, played a bit and then asked me to play something . . .

So I grabbed my classy tobacco sunburst Paul Reed Smith. Mr. Perm was probably thinking I was one of those annoying spoiled kids from the ‘burbs with a nice guitar.

I proceeded to play the riff from ‘Show Don’t Tell’ by Rush, thinking, of course, I was all that and more . . . except Perm had the little solid state Peavey practice amp with the distortion set “on eleven”. You couldn’t even tell what I was playing because the sound was so distorted. Great for metal, bad for early-90’s Rush which should be clean to slightly overdriven, a touch of chorus and highly sophisticated sounding.

'In every adversity there is the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.'-- Napolean Hill My wife made me read a funny article she saw in Real Simple magazine because I’ve been blogging about education and audio school. The article, ‘5 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Recent College Graduate’ can be found here.

Have you been on the receiving end of one of those comments or ones like these?

“The economy’s pretty bad, maybe you should get a part-time job in the meantime.”

“I have a friend who works at / owns a ________ , I could get you in” (but it’s a crappy job)Or, they don’t use words, but their body language says “I disapprove”, “I have reservations”, “I’m clearly superior”, or “I told you so”.Then just slap them! OK, that probably wouldn’t help. The problem is people don’t understand the nature of work in an arts industry. The last thing you need is to feel worse about yourself after enduring one of these conversations with someone who clearly hasn’t been reading Real Simple. So let me give you three tips to help you keep your chin high and put you in the driver’s seat of the conversation.

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself”, John Dewey Welcome to the final part of the Attending Audio School series: the reward. As promised, this will be the happiest part of this blog series. I started with the bad news, so let me tell you the good news. Here are just some of the rewards of attending audio school:

Last time we looked at the risk involved in going to audio school and the reasons for attending school. I hope you’ve already started your research and networking.

Today we’ll be looking at the the possible ROI (return on investment) of an audio education for the purpose of getting work. In Part 1 I said,

“If you're going to school to train for a first or second career, you're spending thousands of dollars on your education and you want a paid job afterward.”

I want to zero in on this because this is the reason the majority of people go to school. And if we’re talking about the ROI of our education, we’re talking directly in terms of paid employment. So the question is:Are there any jobs in audio production?

Intro You’re the kind of person who loves audio, recording, mixing, producing, sound, gear, technology, staying up late and eating pizza, etc. So based on your skills and passion, you’ve decided to attend audio school. You’re stoked, you’re ready, and you can already feel the wind blowing through you hair. The thought of recording big-named artists and bands is giving you enough tissue-aliveness to power a city! But, before you hand over your credit card, student loans or hard earned cash for audio school tuition, have you asked these three questions?

What’s the risk?

What’s the return on investment (ROI)?

What are the rewards?

In this three-part series, I’m going to answer these questions, beginning today with: